Sesame Street

Sesame Street (Chords)

Where can I go without my ukulele? In tribute to the classic broken ukulele sketch, here are the chords to the Sesame Street theme tune.

The tune starts off with a bit of blues shuffle which goes like this:

All the strums are down strums apart from the next to last one in the second and fourth bars.

I prefer to make it more hardcore and bluesy like this:

For the “…tell me how to get…” part you can just play F7 and G. But I like to double the melody like this:

Requested by Artifus.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly/Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly’s recent ukulele session for Le Soir featured a cover of Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. and it was a bit of a cracker. The requests came in and here it is.

The first thing you’ll have to do to play this is to start attacking the tuning pegs. He’s in a tuning that I’ve never come across before: A, B, F#, B. That’s a D-tuning with the D string tuned down three frets to B giving an open B7 tuning. But even that’s not exactly right as he’s tuned a little flat as well.

Once you’ve got that done, the intro goes like this:

The chords for the verse are a simplified version of the intro. It’s very sparse, just the two B strings open with a descending note on the F# string.

The chorus opens up the sound a little by adding a note on top of those chords.

Note the five at the side of the first chord. That means that the chord diagram starts at the fifth fret (so you are fretting at the fifth and seventh frets).

When you’re strumming these, keep a steady up down rhythm going. You can create a funky, syncopated effect by muting some of the strums (covering the strings with you left hand fingers so that the strings just produce a click when you play them).

If you don’t want to mess with the tuning too much, you could just tune the C-string down three frets to A and capo at the second fret (or just play it in the key of A).

If you are desperate to keep the ukulele in C tuning, you could play the intro like this:

Requested by Cardboardfrog and ukulellama.

Basia Bulat - Before I Knew

Basia Bulat - Before I Knew (Chords)

Listen on Imeem

UPDATE: YouTube are featuring ukulele videos today. And totally stealing my shit.

More Canadian ukulele. Basia Bulat’s debut album, Oh, My Darling, kicks of with this short and sweet ukulele ditty.

The intro is pretty simple. You’re just playing the G,C and E strings open and sliding down the A string.

A similar thing is played during the outro but with triplets and an F chord making this a bit trickier.

I think it’s being played with a pick, so no fancy triplet strums. Each triplet is down, up, down which means you’ve got two down strokes next to each other.

Tonight You Belong to Me (The Jerk Version)

Lyle Ritz, Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters - Tonight You Belong to Me (Tab/Chords)

This is one of the definitive ukulele songs, yet it no two tab/chords seem to agree how to play it. There are at least two videos (1, 2) declaring that everyone else’s version are wrong and theirs is right. Well, everyone else is wrong and I’m right.

Seriously, though, I don’t think I’m dead on. The turnaround sections are packed with jazzy chords and tricky to get right.

First off, you’ll have to tune every string down half a step (I suppose you’d call it B tuning). But, to keep things simple, I’ve named the chords after their C tuning shapes.

The intro goes like this:

With the G string carrying the little melody.

The chords for the verse are based on a G chord with a descending note and a little filigree on the top string. At the end of the first verse, there’s little little lick (or something like it):

Similarly, there’s this at the end of the second verse:

After that is the, “Way down…” section and you get a break from the jazz chords. It’s mostly Cm with occasional slides up from Bm.

The chords for the trumpet solo are exactly the same as those in the verse.

You can get a solo version by Lyle Ritz (who played the Jerk version) in his Jumpin’ Jim’s Ukulele Masters book (he also has a new book out Lyle Lite. And don’t miss out on the Guthrie girls’ version of Tonight, You Belong to Me.

Julia Nunes/The Foundations - Build Me Up, Buttercup

Julia Nunes/The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup (Chords)

I have to admit that, since I featured her first uke video way back when, I’ve neglected Julia Nunes. Truth be told, I’m still a little on the fence about her. Nevertheless, there’s no denying the charm of this version of Build Me Up, Buttercup.

These chords are the Nunes version, but they’re very similar to the original version by The Foundations (they’re both in the key of C).

George Formby - Why Don’t Women Like Me?

George Formby - Why Don\’t Women Like Me? (Chords)

There must be something about the 26th May. Today is the birthday of Mike Dickison, Gary from Ukulelia and Mark Occhionero. Happy Birthday, guys!

It also happens to be the birthday of George Formby. For those of an American persuasion, George Formby is the UK’s version of Tiny Tim: gormless, surprisingly popular and synonymous with the ukulele. Like with Tiny Tim in the US, UK ukulelists get sick of George Formby references whenever the subject of the uke comes up. But looking on the bright side, unlike Tiny Tim, George Formby had some serious uke skills. Most of his songs have a serious solo and it’s well worth any uke player picking up some of his techniques. I quick often skip ahead to the solo when one of his tracks is on; they’re full of interesting syncopations. Matthew Richards has a very well explained tutorial on how to play George Formby’s split stroke here.

George Formby is almost exclusively associated with the banjo ukulele, but he was no stranger to the wooden ukulele. As proved by the clip of Why Don’t Women Like Me?.

Why Don’t Women Like Me? is one of my favourite Formby songs; mostly because it namechecks Lady William Hamilton. You don’t get that with Natasha Beddingfield.

It’s the version in the video, shorter than the recorded version, that I’ve written up in the chords. The first thing to notice is that he’s in D-tuning (which he used pretty much exclusively). If you prefer, you can stay in C-tuning and use the chord shapes that you’re familiar with. Other than that, the chords are pretty straight forward.

The most important thing to remember when playing Formby: don’t come in too early with your grin.

Portishead Deep Water

Portishead - Deep Water (Chords) *Link fixed

Hear the song on ilovefizzypop.

Portishead doing a song on the ukulele? Surely an April Fools joke? No. True fact. You won’t find any April Fools jokes on here. I find scheduled anarchy rather dispiriting. I prefer to parcel out misinformation all year round. What’s the April Fools version of Scrooge?

As Andy pointed out, the song is a blatant rip off of Tonight You Belong to Me (made famous by Steve Martin in The Jerk). The chords move in a very similar way. Both songs use the chorder I - I7 - I6 - Iaug - I - V - I in the verses and head for the IVm chord in the next section.

There are only two differences between the version in The Jerk and the Portishead song. First is in key (and that’s only one fret different). Deep Water is played in the F position but tuned up half a step (or capoed at the first fret). Second, the Portishead version isn’t so well played.

The introduction is very similar in that it involves the sus4. Deep Water adds the sus four by moving from the second to the third fret on the G string. He uses this same move with other chords in the sequence later in the song. To keep the chord sheet simple, I haven’t written all these out.

Like Tonight…, there are a few little fills in the song. This one, or something like it, crops up after, “…self doubting again.”

And this little twiddle at the end:

UkuLady Chordsies

Warning: Some of these songs contain language and themes not suitable for children. The others contain language and themes not suitable even for drunk Russian sailors.

The UkuLady’s hilarious songs are a regular highlight of YouTube’s stream of uke videos but it turns out I was familiar with her work long before YouTube was a glint in geek’s eye. She earns a crust as a voice-over artist and is responsible for the heavily bleeding nurse Lisa Garland in Silent Hill and the babbling teenage girl in The Sims 2. But on to more important matters.

I love these songs so much I couldn’t help but work out a bunch of them. Transcribing these songs was made considerably more difficult as I broke down laughing at regular intervals. So if I’ve got something wrong, that’s why.

These songs are played in d-tuning (aDF#B), so if you’re a C-er tune up to play the chords as written or ignore my chord diagrams and play your regular chord shapes.

The mp3s of these songs (along with many more) are at UkuLady Songs and be sure to visit UkuLady’s UkulUniverse.

UkuLady - Oops! (Chordsies)

UkuLady - Oops! (mp3)

The great thing about this song is that it becomes topical every time Britney has another breakdown. It’ll never get old.

UkuLady - Poor Lindsay Uke (Chordsies)

UkuLady - Poor Lindsay Uke (mp3)

Part of the Poor Starlet triptych and my favourite UkuLady song. It reminds me of the old folk song John Henry but instead of a guy dying attempting to keep up with a steam hammer, it’s Lindsay Lohan becoming broke and doing irrevocable damage to her lady’s garden attempting to keep up with Paris Hilton.

UkuLady - Another Love Song (Chordsies)

UkuLady - Another Love Song (mp3)

I enjoy the non-comedy numbers she does. This one is really sweet.

UkuLady - Different Strokes (Chordsies)

UkuLady - Different Strokes (mp3)

A kick ass song from the 80’s.